Combined ticket and automatic auditing system.



No. 770,814. PATE NTED SEPT. 27, 1904.

COMBINED TICKET AND AUTOMATIC AUDITING SYSTEM.

APPLICATION FILED FEB.17. 1902.

N0 MODEL.

WITNESSES:

UNITED STATES Patented September 27, 1904.

PATENT OEEicE.

JOHN W. LUTZ, OF DAYTON, OHIO, ASSIGNOR OF ONE-HALF TO JOHN E.BRELSFORD, OF DAYTON, OHIO.

COMBINED TICKET AND AUTOMATIC AUDITING SYSTEM.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N 0. 770,814, datedSeptember 27, 1904.

Application filed February 1'7, 1902. Serial No. 94,534. (No model.)

To all whont it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, JOHN W. LUTZ, a citizen of the United States,residing at Dayton, in the county of Montgomery and State of Ohio, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in a Combined Ticket andAutomatic Auditing System; and I do hereby declare the following to be afull, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enableothers skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use thesame, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to theletters of reference marked thereon, which form a part of thisspecification.

My present invention relates to a combined ticket and automatic auditingsystem and is the ticket illustrated in Figure 1, but not described orclaimed, in an application filed in the United States Patent Office asjoint inventors by myself (John W. Lutz) and John E. Brelsford forDevice for holding and handling tickets, filed October 19, 1901, SerialNo. 79,312, and although said invention is more especially designed andintended for railroad and traction lines it is applicable as well foruse in cafes, restaurants, stores, and, in fact, all classes of businesshouses wherein slips in the form of tickets or coupons are used, havingprinted, written, or otherwise marked thereon a series of names andnumerals or a series of numerals alone as applicable to the nature andline of business in which they are intended to be used, the saidnumerals representing cash amounts paid and received.

The main objects of this invention are to save time, labor, and expensein issuing, handling, and auditing tickets; also to avoid the necessityof having to keep a great number of different tickets on hand and acumbersome file-case provided with numerous pigeonholes for theirreception. For example, one of my improved tickets as used by railroadsand traction-lines is equivalent to as many different tickets in theform and according to the system now used as there are "stations printedor indicated on my said ticket. Thus one of my improved tickets will doaway with a whole file-case, (and save the space said case wouldoccupy,) for the reason that my improved ticket will have printed on itthe names of all the stations on the road, the name of each one of saidstations taking the place of a pigeonhole, while the entire ticket willtake the place of all the pigeonholes and the entire file-case. By thisinvention the tickets that are turned in by the conductor from thepassenger need not be audited to ascertain if the agents report iscorrect, for by this system he can in no Way report anything but theexact condition of his account with the company, and the tickets beingall numbered consecutively each ticket has to be accounted for,

and as each stub has the same number of the ticket of which itoriginally formed a part it will thus bring the entire ticket togetheragain, thus giving a complete record of the transaction and necessarilyshowing what he has used and the exact value of the ticket he hasdisposed of. In other words, briefly stated, tickets or slips forindicating sales or cash accounts for use in any class of businessplaces when printed according to my improved system always automaticallyaudit themselves, thus not alone savingthe expense of a large clericalforce, but also act as a positive check on any attempt to defraud orsteal either by the agent, conductor, clerk, or on the part of thepassenger or customer, also preventing any errors from arising in theaccount. Said tickets, coupons, or slips consist of the peculiararrangement and combination of the several parts or column or columns ofprinted matter according to my invention, as will be further referred toin detail hereinafter, and pointed out in the subjoined claims inaccordance with the statutes in such cases made and provided therefor.

Referring to the annexed drawings, wherein the same letters of referenceindicate like parts wherever they occur throughout the several views,for the purposes of'illustrating the principles of my invention I haveshown its application to a ticket as used on a tractionline, for whichpurpose it is more especially designed, and in which Fig. 1 is aperspective view of a number of traction-tickets in pad form; and Figs.2 and 3 are face views, respectively, of the ticket originally sold tothe passenger and the stub portion which is to be retained by the agentwho sold the ticket.

Referring in detail to the different parts of my combined ticket andautomatic auditing system, as shown in the accompanying drawings andindicated by means of the letters of reference, as aforesaid, A refersto the tickets, which are intended for convenience to be preferably putup in pad form, as shown in Fig. 1, and numbered consecutively byplacing a number, as at a, at the top, also at the stub end or bottom ofsaid ticket, thus identifying each ticket in such a manner as to make itimpossible for a ticket or a portion or stub of said ticket to be lost,mislaid, purloined, or in any manner unaccounted for or overlookedwithout being immediately detected and traced to the person required togive an account of it. 6 refers to the column or series of names of thestations along the line of the road, each station representing a ticketas heretofore employed in the old and usual manner on roads not using myimproved system. All that is necessary when a passenger purchases aticket to a certain point or station is for the agent to tear orotherwise separate the ticket just below and through the space leftbetween this station and the one below it, as clearly illustrated andseen in Fig. 2, in which instance a supposed passenger has purchased aticket to the station or town named Johnsville and the cash amount paidto the agent as the fare being twenty cents, as indicated by the columnof numerals or figures at the left-hand side of said ticket and referredto, as at 0, and when desired to employ my system on tickets to be usedin connection with other lines of business wherein it is not essentialto use a column or list of names equivalent to column b said column maybe dispensed with, and it will then be only necessary to place in thecenter of said ticket a column of numbers to indicate the amount of cashpaid similar to column 0, except in the reverse order-c'. e., as, forexample, the column may begin at the top with $1.00 and end with 50.,making a gradual decreased or increased difference of five cents, oneover the other, said ticket being torn or otherwise separated just belowthe numeral indicating the amount of cash paid, the same as in the caseof the traction-ticket. The stub end thus remaining bearing the samenumber as is shown at a on the traction-ticket, it will readily beunderstood that by again bringing the parts of the ticket together itwill thus act as an automatic auditing system and also check a customerfrom attempting to alter his account by tearing off any of the numberson his ticket, check, or coupon, for the reason that the numbersincrease on this class of tickets in this instance from the bottom tothe is the auditing-column, the numbers of which v run in the same ratioas the numbers represented in the column of amounts paid and indicatedat 0, but only in the reverse order, and, as illustrated, it will beseen that the first numeral in auditing-column (1 begins on the linejust below the first line on the ticket (running transversely) in whichis the numeral representing the first cash amount paid in column c, thesum-total of these numerals being the entire valuation of the ticketas,for example, in the instance shown in the drawings, the first numeralrepresented in column 0 of ticket A is 5, which stands for five cents,and the first numeral in the line below, but in column d, is 40, whichstands for forty cents, and by adding these two numerals the entirevaluation of the ticket, which is fortyfive cents, is obtained, which isthe last number indicated in the amount-paid column. As a furtherexample and as seen in the instance illustrated in the drawings in Fig.2, the 20 in amount-paid column 0 (being the amount paid) is to be addedto 25 in auditing-column OZ, (shown in Fig. 3,) which is forty-five andis the total valuation of the ticket, as indicated by the last numeralin column 0, also by the small-sized number 4:5, and the name of thestation Eaton just below is placed in this position for the purpose ofindicating the valuation of the ticket; also the last-named station onthe stub after the last-named station Eaton has been torn off of theticket in cases where the entire ticket has been used.

In Fig. 3 I have shown the other section or part of ticket No. 248 fromDayton to J ohnsville, just referred to, and which carries at its endthe stub that is to be retained by the agent as his voucher and turnedin to the main ofiice.

It will be readily understood that my combined ticket and auditingsystem when suitably arranged for round-trip tickets for traction andrailroadlines can be employed equally as well as on single or one-triptickets, and it is therefore unnecessary to illustrate a roundtrip form,as the principle is the same throughout, the only diflerence being thatin the case of a double or round-trip ticket it is to be printed on aslip wide enough for two singletrip or one-way tickets, as shown in thedrawings, and arranged side by side and provided with a centrallongitudinal dividing-line of small perforations, so that the ticket canreadily be divided and one half used in going and the other half used onthe return trip. The only difference in said double or round-trip ticketfrom the single or one-trip, as shown and described, consists simply inincreasing the amounts in both amount paid and auditor columns inaccordance with the round-trip fare.

It will of course be obvious that the principles of my invention areapplicable to other classes of business otherwise than in the instanceherein shown and described; also, that numerals of other denominationsfrom those here shown to represent various amounts may be used, and theincrease or decrease difference between the numerals of differenttickets may vary from the instance here shown.

I am well aware that it is not broadly new to produce a ticket uponwhich are printed names and numerals arranged in various forms; but I amnot aware of any ticket having my form or combination and arrangement ofparts and which will accomplish the result of acting as a check ondishonest persons and also at the same time automatically audit itself,as hereinbefore described.

What I claim is- A ticket having on one of its faces the following: thenumber, the issuing-station, a column of stations to which the ticketmay be issued, the name of the last station and the amount of the farethereto being duplicated, the amount of fare to the several stationsbeing located on one side of the column of stations, and anauditing-column located on the opposite side of the station-column, saidauditing-column indicating, with the amount of the fare paid, themaximum value of the ticket.

In testimony whereof I have aflixed my signature in presence of twowitnesses.

JOHN W. LUTZ.

Witnesses:

JOHN E. BRELSFORD, FRANK M. BURNI-IAM.

